Police not protecting us: Couple to SC

NEW DELHI: A Muslim couple from Orissa, forcibly separated by the community after local clerics issued a fatwa that they were divorced even as they wanted to live together, told the Supreme Court that the police had not provided them protection, despite the court’s orders.

 

Nazma Biwi’s husband Sher Mohammed had pronounced triple talaq in an inebriated condition in 2003 but later realising his mistake, decided to live with his wife and three children. The couple’s counsel submitted that despite an order issued by the Apex Court on April 21, the Orissa Government had not provided any protection to them, and they were still living separately due to threat from the community.

 

Orissa government counsel Shibo Shanker Mishra contradicted the petitioners’ submission, and asserted that the Apex Court’s orders of providing protection to the couple had already been complied with. Mishra also sought time to file an affidavit in the case, as directed by the court on the earlier date.  Observing that there was no urgency in the matter, a Bench of B P Singh and Justice R V Raveendran posted it for hearing after the summer vacation.

 

On April 21, the court had directed the Orissa government to provide police protection to the two, after local clerics at Bhadrak in Orissa issued a fatwa that they were divorced and could not live together.

 

“No one can force them to live separately. This is a secular country. All communities—-Hindus or Muslims should behave in civilised manner,” the three-judge Bench had responded, to a complaint by the petitioner that the couple continued to be ostracised by the Muslim community in Bhadrak.